Improve your presentation skills

During our mba classes, we had a great opportunity to participate in several class presentations. This was a practical way to learn and improve one's presentations. However, good presentation skills, beyond the powerpoint, takes practice.

Every time, I make a presentation, I try to evaluate myself on the following:

1. Eye contact,
2. Pacing,
3. Pause (there is power in a pause)
4. Interaction with the audience, and
5. My overall comfort level.

While these things may appear intuitive, you would be suprised how much time professional speakers have  taken to cultivate them.

Like it or not, any type of presentation you make is a kind of performance. By understanding exactly how performance artists master the skill of entertaining audience, you can start to deliver those electrifying corporate presentations.

Always endeavor to go beyond the software, and be the focus of the presentation. Your audience wants to hear from you, to see how you are connected with the material you are projecting.

On the other side, practice makes perfect. Treat each opportunity to make a public presentation as a learning experience. If you are able to make at least four presentations a year in audience exceeding 50 people, your confidence level will improve.

And to a manager, this can be one of your greatest strengths. So go and practice, and build your presentations skills, one presentation at a time.

How to become a better Negotiator

Whether or not you are into into business, negotiation is a critical skill you need to hone. Associate Professor at Havard Business School, Deeptak Malhotra offers several tips to improve your abilities in this lecture given at an emerging markets conference in 2007.



In many cases, knowledge of game theory can be very useful in negotiation.

Fast track your career-Putting your MBA knowledge to good use

Now that we have finished the business education, we are up for what they say: “do as I say but not as I do.”

Putting your mba knowledge to good use can be a hassle worse still in this strife ridden financial period! I don’t mean there aren’t any good places to put your newly acquired skills. But that you may have to do a bit more than conventional wisdom. Corporate structures can be so stiff, innovation-deprived, and some times suffocating those fresh energetic minds.

Whether you are like me who is exploring new grounds, or just moving on with your old path, it is important that you quickly get the insights about the working of your chosen corporation.

Unlike class room environment, corporate ambience can drastically challenge and change you. You have to know what makes it work, well before you even get to know what exactly you are doing. You have to stay flexible.

To jumpstart your career, you will need to show immediate relevance of your knowledge. Whether you are proposing a new process to streamline work or product lines, adapting innovative frameworks or taking on more daunting tasks like cost restructuring, your immediate boss wants to know how your MBA knowledge makes you tick.

I know many people who still believe an MBA is simply a way to get into the best position regarding the corporate offers ( read as c-offers or coffers). While many MBA's double their salaries within two years of graduation, I personally believe the main reason I value MBA education is to bring fresh idea to an organization.

Indeed, this can be a highly priced initiative. But 10years down, unless you are capable of keeping a fresh ambience on your career in terms of the way you conduct business, paycheck alone won’t be as much important.

Post MBA Careers- Why that change may not be for you

Considering a career change after an MBA can be a luring and also daunting experience. Many people, including managers receive it with mixed feelings. To many, it connotes that dreaded feeling of having to start all over again.

While you get briefed on so much as an MBA, career change is remains a sticky topic only few want to navigate. And though a career change may be attractive and infact provide new opportunities, and challenges, it is just not for everyone.

Most MBA graduates end up with much more skills than needed in previous careers. However, this alone should not warrant a complete switch. Understanding exactly what skills are relevant to the new profession beyond classroom simulations is not so obvious. That’s why a corporate internship or a management trainee program with a reputable firm may be a more prudent way to start.

Infact, before I came to business school, I was seriously considering my interests in investment banking. This is one such a hot area, especially with the rapid growth in venture capital and private equity start-ups. The desire to incubate innovative business ideas was inescapable.

But business isn’t as simplistic as putting down the idea. More is at play. For instance, the external structures, environment in one area may be more conducive for one kind of engagement than another. However, even with an opportunity of knowledge in Finance, I still couldn’t give it a pass the way I wanted.

You too may have to conduct similar diagnostics on your career prospects. Evaluate your most likely success areas and optimize your potential. Career planning during and after your MBA should never be a taboo. Careers, like many areas of life are constantly evolving.

From Paper to Practice- MBA Action Project: Internships, Experiences

Time runs very fast. It's just like I started the MBA school yesterday, yet today am are already into the much anticipated action project phase.

I must say, the MBA experience has been good. The interactive classes wonderful. I will miss them. Anyhow, now it is time to focus on another learning process. For me, it is working so far so well. I must say that learning is not limited. I have hardly spent a week at my work place, and  I am liking it.

No single experience, is the same. Today was a special day. It literally took me four hours to get from Milan to Cerro. Infact, I couldnt even get there directly. I had to go via a different route. Everything is so set-up, timed to the minute. Any slight delay and you have ruined another life day. For those of us who have to travel around for business appointments, you understand what I mean.


Anyway, there is as much one can learn as they choose to. Present in my environment are all sorts of familiar and unfamiliar scenarios. Neverthless I appreciate that everything is as good as I make it. Even after I spent over two hours under the smacking chill of winter, I was still happy to get there for another day.

Meanwhile, as I hear from all over, I also appreciate that nothing is written on stone. It is perfectly fine to explore different options where practical. Just remember that we dont have a lot of leverage to go about. The earlier we find what is it that we want to action on, the better.


I am pleased with the prospects that I have before me. Involved in an internationalization and market exposure for hospitality and catering service  products. Iam focusing on an exciting and growing sector in this industry. One interesting product in my portifolio is a whole (shell) egg pasteurizing state-of-the art equipment.


I must confess that I am new to the hospitality industry, but I am liking what I am learning. Taking a deeper insight into the industry is giving me a marketing ground for professional and consumer products in hotels, catering for hotel executives and the dinners they serve.

As I write, I am already underway with a communication and marketing plan. And I must say that I have a good edge in this area. I couldn't imagine anything more exciting, diverse and challenging than marketing a 'food gadget...,' you may think. Something as simple as an egg pasteurization oven!

But when it comes to your health, safety of what you put into your body, nothing could be more parlous. And for hotel managers, even if food safety issues didnt result into litigation, or negative media, the long-term loss any dangerous case could bring on the your bottom-line, far outweighs all other expenses combined.

Morever, the goal to reduce operational costs associated with service delivery whie improving efficiency can give chefs more flexibilty in what they can offer for their guests. However, this is only for the proactives.

And beyond industrial use, home and domestic consumers also need to take great conern of their food safety. This can be as simple as learnig about what can cause food poisoning, like poultry products, and how to minimise risks to taking complete control of your domestic food safety through specialised kitchen equipment.

Salmonella, for instance, is a common pathogen, but many more poor kitchen practices could easily hurt your loved ones. Especially, if you have minors below 9 or seniors, you need to take extra care when you make your favorite recipes.

I know such things can easily pass as trivial, but the statatics are not anything less of astonishing. In the United States alone 300,000 people report salmonella a year. General food poisoning even higher. Infact, such cases can get tragic. The negative media coverage over a British tourist who died from food poisoning after lodging at an Italian hotel not only damaged the reputation of the world's favorite tourist destination, it soured relationships between the two nations.

Take care of the safety of your loved ones. It starts right from the kitchen, what you serve. It is so simple to ignore.

Altis MBA Almuni Go Blogging

Everyone has been waiting for this moment. But I couldn't wait any longer. As Prof. Staiti rightly put it,whatever is not communicated, does not exit. So we can assume until now that we are as ready for it as we were several weeks back. After all, it is never too late.

You probably all know that maintaining a blog is as easy as picking course materials from the tray. You simply look over the tags for your tray,and pull out whatever is-in there. Whether or not one actually ever looks through the material is then another issue altogether.

So I finally made the effort to look over blogger and have this blog up. I try to make some necessary customizations, and if possible you can have as much control in posting as you get when you choose to customize your mba path. But bear with me, this additional effort may require some time. I am not myself a professional blogger, though I spent a considerable amount of time writing for the entertainment and communication media.

Nevertheless, I have not a single problem rolling blogs over here, as it is merely another way to stay at one of my favorite arts-writing and communicating.

This is however a rather small and brief post. It only serves an introductory role. Every reader is free to post a comment, and the Altis alumni may be even can do more, and as the network grows, I hope the blog will provide coverage among current and future Altis alumni.

The motivation is rather simple. In an increasingly competitive world, we need to differentiate. Particularly, prospective students will find information in this blog invaluable though not to be treated as a substitute for the school's communications.

As it stands now, this blog is fully-functional. Go ahead and enjoy.

Altis 2009 MBA Alumni e-Brochure Progress

This is the first post. I have created this series to help us navigate around our busy schedules as we work on the our e-brochure.

This is an exciting moment to relive some of the experiences we have gathered over the last several months we have been together. Since we have lots of media present, I welcome that this blog become part of the shared resource we turn to as an alumni network. I will offer to bloggerise it, anyway that is to organize it. For now, a team of volunteers are laying down the basic structure of the e-brochure.

I know many more of you may wish to bring your ideas into the design, structure and content. Euael has already put something down, which I did supplement and we are passing it around to Ratanesh, Thiago Leonardo among some of those who volunteered already.

Remember that we briefly discussed this idea during that evening for the get together. I thank Euael who has continously reminded me to embark on it.

Since we could be getting busier and busier any time from now,I suggest we throw in as much raw material as we can. Particularly pictures from our Mba classes, tours, business seminars, luncheons, dinners and all the social get-togethers, videos, speech recordings whatever you can land on, please send it.

There is a team of eager people who are waiting to put it together into a truly world-class MBA Alumin Network e-book. This can start as soon as some workable material comes in.
If we can piece together a something by our graduation day, then we will have made it even more interesting. Though the publishing the actual final copy may weight a couple of days until we finalise moments from that long-awaited Dee-day.


I also remember Leaonardo had suggested we put together a flash video of pictures, of all those moments. This shall accompany the e-brochure. Since both products rely on the same raw materials, I think it will save us time if both start simultaneously. There is only predecessor, and that is gathering the raw data. Rudi, can you please get us the project plan, so we can get started. Anyhow, some of the stuff we need includes, though not limited to pictures, videos & audio clips. As long as they are relevant to our experience as MBA class students, or international students, or a diverse group of students, though not necessarily applicable to the entire group at all times.

There is at least seven themes that you may want to explore as you dig-up you hard drives and submit materials. They cover:

1. Diversity & Global dimension ( Focus on BRICA. Doesnt sound as cool, eeh! But you guessed right, A is for Africa, etc)
   
2. Italy
3. Milan
4. MBA Class ( eg workgroups, such as the producing and marketing of A4 paper-chairs during of the multicultural management class, and many others)
5. Social Entrepreneurship
6. Business Leadership, and
7. Altis MBA experience in general.

Also it is important to remember that this effort is not meant to substitute mainstream efforts of the School administration's marketing and communication strategies. However, I trust that if it complemented those efforts, then we could have generated good add-value to the important relations we have already forged . But this is in no way a pre-requisite accomplishment for the brochure's success.

Don't just believe whatever I tell you anyway. If it feels right, and you got it, then probably you want to say it. Send it through.

Like Steve Jobs likes to put it, lets get started. By the way, if you haven't got yourself a copy of Carmine Gallo's new release "The presentation Secrets of Stev Jobs"you don't know what you could be missing! Chances are high, from now on, you will receive more stress from Powerpoint and or Keynote assignments than you will have with those 2000 word long mba essays.

And unlike those class essays, business presentations can get really fierce on both deadlines and decision-lines- to make or break a career. You need to be prepared. The guy generously prepared a PowerPoint version of his now 24 dollar book. You can view it here free. If you like it, buy the book. Amazon has already discounted it for by more than 7 dollars, yet remains a hot seller. Still, don't just jump in on my word, and cash-out your hard-earned ( or saved dollars or euros), if you are not satisfied, you can take a glimpse into what Gallo has packed inside.

I pre-ordered mine last year, fresh off the press. And I can tell you, if you don't already know what is in this book, you are not yet ready to risk your career. Dont even try.